Description

Last updated at 9:08, 4 May 2015Uploaded at 0:40, 17 Nov 2012

With literacy rates in Skyrim rising, now is the time to open a bookstore! Also I was tired of having to look for books in ruins. So here it is, the first book shop in the Reach (which frankly could use some more stores). I hope you like it.

The setting

The retired mage Balthazar has, after much haggling with the Markarth city council about building restrictions and zoning permits, finally opened his bookstore in the Reach. You will find it by heading directly to the right after entering Markarth, just beyond the local market. With a decent selection of books and the occasional spell tome and scroll, book lovers everywhere should rejoice. Balthazar should get a fresh new load of books in every once in a while. He will sell you books between 8:00 and 0:00 and sic his familiar on you at night if you're found in his store.

The other group of people who should rejoice are the more light-fingered ones among us because there is a lot of stuff to steal here (although mainly books - it's a bookstore!), but I wager you'll find entering Balthazar's shop at night no easy task... (I'm not kidding, if this location gets selected by a Thieves' guild quest which may happen, come prepared). Balthazar is a suspicious and grumpy old coot and will likely keep a close eye on you, and his familiar guards the place during the day and patrols at night - and it WILL attack on sight if you're caught breaking and entering. If you see the familiar starting to patrol (instead of standing in one place), I advise you to leave. Immediately. There is a grace period, but not a very long one. Also Balthazar is a vindictive bastard, so once you get on his bad side and you do run, he might chase you all over Markarth). The solution is to not piss off the mage. Of course, you could kill him (he's not essential or protected or anything) but then who would sell you new books?

Installation/uninstallation/conflicts

May conflict with mods which alter Markarth, but otherwise it's been cleaned, hung out to dry, and lovingly play-tested by yours truly and should cause no great problems (note to self - when using a leveled list always playtest with both high and low level characters - D'oh!). This is my first attempt at a merchant and altering a cityscape - I originally wanted to place the thing in Solitude but that place is impossibly crowded.

To install simply unzip into your data folder, or use your favorite mod manager. To uninstall make sure you're not IN Markarth or heaven forbid, the book store itself, save and exit your game, use your mod manager of choice to deactivate the mod, or manually remove markarthbookstore.esp and markarthbookstore.bsa from your data folder. To upgrade from a previous version, just overwrite the existing files. Probably best if you do that while your character is not actually in the bookstore or (to be safe) Markarth.

Recommendations and credits

Should play well with other mods for book lovers, such as Books Plus, extended books mod, and the ever-so-handy unread books glow. Balthazar sells from the leveled item lists for books, so any book which gets added to that is one he might try to sell you sooner or later.

Makes grateful use of the OpenBooks and Booksets modder's resources published by Blary.

A short break from my tiny home series (Tiny Assassin Hideout, Tiny Alchemist Hut, Tiny Mage Tower, and Tiny Tree Home) to scratch a personal itch and get away from work on my main mod, which is growing ever larger and more intimidating to work on. Learned what I wanted to learn about merchants, home owners, factions, and several AI packages and procedures and how to chain them successfully. Fun was had. Tears were shed. Moving on.